What I Didn't Say
by kerrykhat
Summary: Buffy learns the hard way that it's not what's said that's important; rather, it's what's left unsaid.


**Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural, Buffy, or the song "What I Didn't Say." They respectively belong to Whedon, Kripke, and Saving Jane. **

**AN: Please read & review. Reviews make me happy, and encourage me to write more.**

Buffy sat in her living room surrounded by silence. She refused to look at the pictures around her that showed her in a happier time with Dean. It had been eight days, five hours, twenty minutes and a few odd seconds since she had seen him walk out of her life, all because she couldn't bring herself to tell him her secrets and he couldn't bring himself to tell her his.

"_How the hell am I supposed to trust you when you don't even trust me?"_ She could hear the echoes of past fights play in her head, but the sounds never permeated the melancholy room. _"Trust is a two-way street Dean Winchester!"_

"_Like you're the one to talk Princess!"_ Dean's ghost yelled back at her. He always called her Princess when he was angry with her, which seemed to be more and more often as their relationship developed. She closed her eyes tight and wished she could forget everything but their brief moments of happiness together, but the only things that shone brightly in her mind were the pivotal moments that seemed to doom their relationship.

"_Where did you get these scars?"_ She had finally worked up the courage to ask him one morning as they lolled around in bed refusing to get up and face another day. He had hesitated for a brief moment and she knew in that instant that he was lying to her, just as she had been lying to him the entire time. The next few days she would study his eyes whenever she asked him something and wondered if she looked the same way when she lied to him. She never told him where she went late at night and would give a lie whenever he asked. She was almost positive Dean lied to her when she asked where he would go days at a time whenever he received phone calls from the man he claimed was his father.

_Secrets told in the pictures on your skin  
Hours fade into days that never end  
I see myself reflected in your eyes  
And I hate the way I'm wearing all these lies_

"_You think I'm happy with this arrangement sweetheart? Think again!"_ Finally, all the fighting had gotten to them and she found herself in a position she had hoped to never be in again, and yet inevitably found herself to be in. That fight hadn't even been the worst fight they'd ever had, but it had been enough.

"_If you're so unhappy then why are you still here?"_ Ten words. Ten words were all that it took for Dean Winchester to pack his bags and leave, the wheels of the Impala screeching out of the driveway less than an hour later. It hurt her that he was able to move out of her life so quickly, as if he was expecting to be gone at a moments notice for a while now. Had this just been a game to him? She wondered as she bit her lip to keep from speaking as he gave her one last look, hazel eyes inscrutable and mouth firm with determination. And then he was gone, the first man she had really fallen for since Riley.

"_I love you Dean! Please, don't leave me!"_ She had wanted to scream those words at him but her mouth refused to move and she'd stayed silent as yet another man walked out of her life. She wished she could take back everything she'd said to him and tell him everything, even if he thought she was crazy. Deep down, she knew that what they both hadn't said that had created this rift between the two of them.

_So I let you go  
And I watch you leave  
And I hold my breath  
So you don't hear me scream  
When you walk away  
But the words are only in my head  
It's not what I said  
It's what I didn't say_

One month passed, then two. Slowly Buffy began piecing her life back together, going on more trips to try and fill the gaping hole Dean had left in her life. No one commented how dedicated she'd become to Slaying ever since the man she'd been seeing walked out of her life. Dawn had tried to talk to her sister about it but Buffy had shut her down. She wasn't ready to open up those wounds again so soon. Faith kept urging her to join her in a wild and crazy girls night out but Buffy kept putting it off.

"_B, you OK?"_

"_Yeah, just peachy,"_ she had answered with a bitter little laugh. The trip had been routine: Go with a group of minis and clear out a nest of vamps plaguing some Podunk town in the middle of nowhere, Ohio. The slayage had been glorious and every Slayer was returning home happy with the number of vamps they'd dusted.

Faith and Buffy had taken a slight detour to fill up on gas when she'd seen him walking down the street with another woman. They way he held her close to him, the way he smiled at something she said and the way that he leaned down to kiss her…it was more than she could take. Before he could notice her, she had slid down behind the car with Faith looking first at Dean and his new girl and then at her. They had stayed silent until they reached the Cleveland headquarters, where Faith had tried to talk to Buffy about it.

That night Buffy held the last trace of Dean she had close to her, inhaling the fading scent from a shirt he had accidently left behind. She'd only found it once she had moved out of the tiny apartment they'd shared back into Slayer HQ and would pull it out to remind her that it had actually been real and not some nightmare designed to pull all her worst fears about herself to light. How long after he'd left her did he meet this girl? Did he lie to her the same way he lied to her? Did she lie to him? Did he care for the new girl more than he cared for her?

_Is she everything you wanted her to be?  
Yeah, I bet she never breaks your heart like me  
So it's one more night I cover up with you  
And I hate myself for what I didn't do_

_So I let you go  
And I watch you leave  
And I hold my breath  
So you don't hear me scream  
When you walk away  
But the words are only in my head  
It's not what I said  
It's what I didn't say_

"_I guess I should resign myself to the fact relationships and I are un-mixy things_." Whenever Dawn would try to get her to date again, she'd pull out that line to keep her at bay and finally Dawn just gave up. Soon, the image of Dean faded from everyone's mind, just another one of the nameless men the Slayer had dated. Only a few people knew that Buffy still carried the hurt from that day, never fully giving it up.

"_I'm taking the whole experience as a lesson as to why I can never do normal."_ She would make light of her relationship occasionally to hide the hurt from her friends, laughing it off as another in a long line of incidents that showed why she could never be normal or even have normal things like a healthy dating life. _"The only datable material is, well, non-existent for someone like me."_

"_Buffster, you couldn't do normal even if you tried."_ Xander hadn't meant to hurt her but she wondered if she couldn't do normal, than did that mean she could never have what Willow had with Kennedy? Did that mean she was doomed to spend her life alone?

With Dean she thought she'd had something, a spark that hadn't been there before, but apparently she was wrong. She should've learned her lesson by now but she'd hoped this time would be different.

_Should've known better, now  
All I have left is a permanent stain  
The only part of you I get to keep forever  
To prove I lived this pain_

_Maybe I was never as smart as I thought  
Maybe we can never be as good as we want  
Maybe you just didn't need me enough  
Maybe we're too clever to be falling in love like this  
Like this_

"_You need to tell me anything sweetheart?"_ Questions like that she would leave unanswered except for kissing him. She had figured that if she didn't talk about her secrets or directly lied to him than it would be easier on them both. Look how that brilliant strategy had ended.

_Secrets told in the silence of my sin  
And I'm the one who loses in the end_

"_Where are you going Buffy?"_

"_I just need to clear my head for a bit and I actually want to enjoy the sun for once Dawnie."_ Nine months, twelve days, seven hours, thirty-seven minutes and a few seconds. That's how much time had passed since Dean had walked out, leaving her broken into pieces that she still wasn't sure she would be able to fully put together. She had been avoiding places where they would go together; afraid of the memories that threatened to overwhelm her on a daily basis would shatter her beyond repair.

"_Where are we going Buffy?"_

"_Trust me on this one Dean. Just drive." _She hadn't expected to end up there when she had left HQ to go on a walk. It was a secluded little grove that she had taken Dean to a few weeks into their relationship, off the main highway and through some back roads. It had been a lazy summer day when they had first visited and made love under the trees, but now the crisp fall air nipped at Buffy's cheeks and the fallen leaves crunched under her boots.

"I love you Dean Winchester," she whispered as she finally uttered the words she had kept inside her for so long. "I'm sorry I couldn't say it before and now it's too late. I was too stubborn, too afraid to tell you before and now that I can finally bring myself to say it, you aren't around to hear it."

That night, instead of tossing and turning for hours, she slipped into sleep almost instantly with the bittersweet comfort that she had finally said what she hadn't before. Before she drifted off, she whispered to her pillow: "Goodnight Dean, where ever you are."

_So I let you go and I watch you leave  
And I hold my breath so you don't hear me scream  
When you walk away  
But the words are only in my head  
It's not what I said that's keeping me awake_

_It's what I didn't say, what I didn't say  
It's not what I said that's keeping me awake  
It's not what I said, it's what I didn't say._


End file.
